#it was cute how they played with cliches and references throughout and him slapping a bandaid over it WAS funny but c'mon

[reachexceedinggrasp]

The Killer did come to cinemas here! I had to get my brother to drive me over an hour, but I got to see it!

It wasn't quite what I was expecting story-wise, I had thought it'd be very simple and probably a relentless chase once she was kidnapped and that would be most of the movie, but the plot was actually sort of complicated with more slower, quiet scenes than I anticipated.

The action was certainly everything I expected! Spectacular. I need to watch it again to take it all in. And it was funny (the moment when he's shooting dudes and just casually takes a sip of his latte absolutely killed me, fucking iconique), but it was also way darker than I imagined. It was a lot more grounded and visceral than John Wick, the film it's always being compared to, despite Ui-gang being even more unstoppable and unflappable than John. He's a more realistic and slightly more developed character, which in turn raises more questions about his moral dubiousness when he goes around murdering people fairly indiscriminatingly. It was rated 14A so I was kinda shocked by how bloody the violence was. I've seen 18A movies that felt tamer.

The really big question for me that was never answered was... does his wife Know? And if she didn't before, what's he going to tell her at the end to explain things? He's going to have to tell her something.

Further actual thoughts on the film perhaps later, but right now I'll just note that beautiful man looks somehow even more beautiful on the big screen and I need one of those giant fancy tvs with the true blacks in order to watch him on at home. Because. Oh my God.

#jang hyuk #feeling shame for this post #seriously there would be close-ups of his face and I would be fully no thoughts head empty #he got stabbed and there was no scene of him sewing himself up how dare they deprive me of this #him getting stabbed was a promise to me they would have that scene damn it #it was cute how they played with cliches and references throughout and him slapping a bandaid over it WAS funny but c'mon #how can they skip the shirtless stitching scene it is a pillar of action cinema #that tight black t-shirt tho holy shit #that and the shoulder holster #speechless

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

Breakfast in the Bed || Mike Wheeler x Reader

Day 3 of Fictober

Pairings: Mike Wheeler x [gn]Reader, Elmax

Fandom: Stranger Things (2016-)

Requested: Could you write a Mike x Reader fic where Mike and the rest of the party surprise the reader with breakfast in bed on their birthday and the reader accidentally confesses that she likes Mike? Or something like that, idk. Thanks!

A//n: Holy fuck, im so sorry this took a million years, but thank you loads for being so incredibly patient. It gets so hard sometimes, but know that I appreciate your guys' understanding and patience with me and I've always had every intention of getting it done cause I want to keep my promise to you guys 💞 i thought this was a cute request, and for a while I had this idea stuck in my head that made it kinda hard to write but then when I started writing, it took a different direction in a different tone but i think it helped. Its more of a funny chaotic kind of fluff rather than an typical "you like me?" cliche fluff. Either way I hope you like it and thanks again for being so patient and requesting!

Fictober Day 1: "you did this?"

[Not Really] Warnings: fluff, a Zathura reference. Elmax being adorable girlfriends

Key: f/b = favorite breakfast/fav.food

"Are you sure about this, man?"

"Shh!" Mike hisses, trying desperately to keep the tray in his hands balanced. "You'll wake Y/n!"

Lucas looks at his friend completely dumbfounded like the rest of the group, aside from El who clung to Max's arm with a perplexed expression and a party hat on her head.

"Dude," Lucas deadpans. "That's the whole point."

"You know what I mean," Mike huffs.

With some convincing from your head of house and some careful planning the night before, the party now found themselves in your doorway with your favorite breakfast. You were still out cold, head buried in your pillow and your limbs tangled messily in your sheets.

"Are you sure we even should be doing this?" Max asks in a whisper. "You know how Y/n feels about sleeping. And, ya know, I'd want to sleep in on my birthday."

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Dustin eases with a smile, and a cheery tune. "It's us! And food. In bed!"

He steps out from behind Mike and enters your bedroom, and everyone watches wearily as he tiptoes to your bedside. You still hadn't moved, aside from the steady rise and fall of your body. Max's words played over in Mike's head and the more it did he couldn't help but realize she was probably right. He tried calling out to Dustin but it was too late. By the time the grinning boy had reached out to touch your shoulder it looked more as if he were poking a sleeping bear.

You groaned but never moved, and Dustin tried again.

"Dustin?" Will whispers uneasily. "Maybe, Max is right. Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

"Y/n~" Dustin sings in a low volume, and he begins shaking you more. "Y/n, wake up~! We've got a surprise for you~!"

You shift in your bed but again, show no signs of consciousness. Dustin looks over his shoulder at his friends, a bright smile overtaking his face.

"Guys, it's fine! Look," He turns back to you, shaking your shoulder again and missing the winces from your friends. "Y/n-"

Dustin stumbles back when your palm meets his face with a rough smack.

"Go away!" You exclaim, eyes screwed shut to block out all the invasive light that stung your vision.

You didn't quite know who all was there, all you did know was that people were in your bedroom and trying to wake you up.

"Why," you seethed, your voice low and gravelly from lack of use. "am I awake at,"

You roll over to look at the flickering red lights of your alarm clock, your eyelids fighting hard to stay open.

"six-thirty in the morning?"

Through your blurry vision you can make out all of the party standing in your room, looks of displacement written all over their faces. It's quiet for a moment as they struggle for words, until El breaks the silence with a party blower.

Max winces from her side, and sends a small smile to the brunette and in a small voice says to her. "Yeah, maybe not now, okay El?"

El winces, taking the party blower out of her hand and gives you a wide toothy smile. You didn't mind so much as you just wanted to give into what your body was telling you do; bury yourself under the covers and slip back into sleep.

You groan again, doing just that. You let your body fall back into the small nest you had unintentionally made for yourself but you knew the comfort was going to be short lived. And it was.

"Come on, Y/n," Lucas said, stepping into your bedroom, gesturing past Dustin who was still rubbing his nose, and over to Mike who timidly held the tray of f/b. "We made you breakfast."

They were met with silence. And no, they were not being ignored but you in fact were drifting back off.

"You can eat it in bed," Lucas added with a hopeful grin.

Your head picked up when you registered what your friend said. Your eyelids still felt they were made of magnets wanting to snap together but it was a little easier to fight it.

You were kinda hungry... And you wanted to spend today with your friends anyway.

You plastered on a sleepy smile, and turned to look at your friends through your half-lidded eyes as if you hadn't just scolded them.

"For me?" You asked in an exaggerated, sickly sweet voice that asked them to move on from it.

They all laughed nervously - again, apart from El who just seemed happy you were happy now.

"Yup," Lucas said. "We thought you deserved something special for your birthday, so we all decided to surprise you."

His voice was a bit uneasy, but your brain was still too foggy to comprehend it. So you just pulled yourself up into a sitting position against your pillows, readjusting your sleepshirt and pajama bottoms since they had shifted an uncomfortable amount throughout the night.

You smiled up at them all, feeling kinda guilty.

"Thank you guys," you said, with a genuine smile. "This is actually really nice. Here, you can come in,"

Mike seemed the most relieved out of all of them, and anxiously he stepped forward and headed for your bedside with the tray table full of food and drink. Max and El walked hand in hand to stand at the end of you bed, Max taking a seat on the end of the mattress to face you while El began playing with ends of her hair. Lucas and Dustin were further along the side of the bed to make room for Mike who carried the tray.

You bit the inside of you cheek a little, rubbing the sleep away from your eyes as you yawned.

"Sorry I hit you, Dustin," you say meekly, beginning to feel a bit silly about the whole thing.

He shrugs it off with a smile. "Eh, no worries. We'll be laughing about it later. Right, guys?"

He pat Mike's back in a playful - and forceful - manner, unintentionally throwing the balance off the tray. Not a single item stayed on the wooden tray, but was now splayed out all over your sheets and soaking through your shirt and pajama bottoms. You jumped back at the unwelcomed and highly uncomfortable sensation, gaping down at the mess you were now buried in. Slowly you look up to meet eyes with the party, particularly Dustin and Mike.

They looked as if they had crapped their pants.

Dustin's jaw hangs open for a moment, his entire body completely frozen. His right hand is wrenched up to point at Mike, who stares at the tray with glazed eyes, and his face completely crimson.

"It was all his idea!" Dustin squeaks.

Your fiery gaze meets Mike's terrified one, and his mouth parts as he begins sputtering. He was trying to summon an apology, or even an "it was an accident" but all he managed was a nervous, uncomfortable smile.

Your heart would have fluttered at his state had it not been for the meal that had just been dumped on you. You yank the sheets off of you, drops of what hadn't yet soaked completely in flew through the air and hit some of your friends and Mike backs away. He drops the tray from his hands when you climb out of bed with a look that could kill, wet chunks of food falling off of you and landing on the floor with slap.

"You did this?"

Sure, your best friend and long time crush had looped all your friends into coming over and surprising you for your birthday. But he also was the reason you not only lost a long morning of sleeping in, but were now wearing your breakfast and didn't have a warm bed to go back into when they left.

You're eyes narrowed at him. "You did this."

"I'm sorry!" He shouts, running out into the hallway.

"YOU'RE LUCKY I LIKE YOU WHEELER, OR YOU'D BE DEAD! NOW GET BACK HERE, AND CLEAN THIS UP!" You shout, running out right after him.

The remainder of the party stands awkwardly at your bedside where you left them.

Dustin laughs nervously. "That went well,"

Will gestured over his shoulder towards the hall, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Wait," he laughs. "Did Y/n finally just admit what I think Y/n just admitted?"

Max grimaced as she wiped away the remainder of food that had clung to her face, and flicked it away disgusted that she had been hit.

"Yup," Max says, popping the 'p'. "Didn't think I'd see the day, either."

#fictober20 #fictober 2020 #fictober #fictober day 3 #mike wheeler x reader #gender neutral imagine #requested #stranger things #mike wheeler #elmax #mike wheeler imagine #mike wheeler one shot #mike wheeler x gn!reader #mike wheeler x gender nuetral!reader #fic

[uzuuzuking]

so this started out as just a general post about why i like cinderella adaptations, but slowly spiraled into a ranking/review of all the cinderella adaptations i’ve seen in my short, young life. so strap in for possibly the longest post i’ve ever made on this blog. (look, i never know how much i have to say about something until i really get going lmao)

idk why i like cinderella adaptations/remakes/spinoffs so much? most of them are garbage (especially the ones within the last 10 years don’t @ me) but fuck it i like this brand of garbage. it’s fun to watch these movies and rework the bad plotlines and dialogue in my head as i go along.

i guess i like the source material and some of the aspects of all the different adaptations, but honestly i just like re-imagining them because there’s only so much cringey script-written-for-teens-but-clearly-written-by-40-year-old-adults-who-have-no-idea-how-teens-or-even-people-for-that-matter-actually-talk-and-interact i can take in one excruciating sitting.

anyway here’s my personal ranking of all the cinderella adaptations i’ve seen that no one asked for. (not including stage productions because i haven’t seen any and have no opinion of them. also not including into the woods because that’s not just cinderella, but a spectacular amalgamation of fairytale mishap and shenanigan.) and reviews because apparently i had more to say than i originally thought when i first started constructing this list:

cinderella (1997) - the absolute best cinderella adaptation of all time, hands down, this is non-negotiable. this movie has it all: an excellent and diverse cast, gorgeous costume design, beautiful sets, some of the most dazzling dance numbers i ever witnessed when i first watched it at the wee age of 4, and a positive, progressive message that was accurate for its time yet also so ahead of its time. i cannot praise this version of cinderella enough, it is my all time favorite and one of my top 3 feel-good movies. if you watched it today, the effects might not be as magical compared to what we have now, but keep in mind it was released in 1997. anyway, the cast is truly amazing and so effortlessly inclusive (and honestly the fact that the prince was asian with a black mother and white father and they literally never addressed it was such a power move). i could go on about this movie forever (i’ll probably make a whole post dedicated to it in the future) and what it meant to me and many others as young, impressionable poc. in conclusion, this movie set an exceedingly high standard for me and destroyed the chances of any other cinderella adaptation even hoping to live up to that. i love it! so! much!

ever after: a cinderella story (1998) - tbh i never saw this until i was in college but i immediately fell in love. i love the flow of the story as a whole - i never felt like anything was missing. i love the costumes and i especially love how danielle and henry’s relationship progressed throughout the film. slow-burn comes to mind when i watch their interactions and we all love a sweet, sweet slow-burn. it’s romance babes! it’s Dramatic in a few scenes and all i can say is that it really works because drew barrymore’s performance is exceptional, fantastic, engaging, more adjectives to describe how enthralled by her i was. above all, her character is compassionate - she uses her voice to speak in support for those who are suppressed by the flawed government systems and law enforcers, and influences the prince to use his status and power to better his people who lack the privileges of the nobility. she’s such a strong female lead (emotionally and physically - she literally fireman carries her love interest, who is taller than her and definitely exceeds her own bodyweight) and truly the mvp of this adaptation. watch it. watch it for Her.

enchanted (2007) - amy adams and idina menzel - ‘nuff said. okay but for real this one is so unique with its transition from classic d*sney 2D animation style to the real three-dimensional world and i adore it to the ends of the earth. the music? slaps! the story? slaps! the development of the main character? slaps!! she’s so princess-y and d*sney cartoon-y and struggles in the real world, but she adapts at a good pace and i love that she learns to be realistic while also keeping hope and love close to her heart. also her mother figure / daughter figure bond with morgan is so so precious. the only constructive criticism i have for this movie is the fact that we were robbed of idina menzel singing!!! did they know all along she was destined to play the frozen queen years in the future and decided against her singing in this one?? is that it? ridiculous. it’s been over a decade and i’m still seething over this. other than that this movie is *chef’s kiss*

ella enchanted (2004) - anne hathaway’s back must still be hurting from carrying this film. (no shade to the other cast members, they’re good, but anne is a queen and i forever love her.) this is another childhood favorite of mine. the story itself is a refreshing take - hats off to gail carson levine for the source material! i’ve talked about the differences between the movie and book before in the midst of my reread of the book a few months ago, but i don’t remember how much i focused on the movie. it’s so different from the book that it might as well be its own thing. on its own, the movie is pretty decent! again, mostly because of anne. it’s funny, it’s sad (especially that scene towards the beginning between ella and areida, i’m in stupid tears every time), and it gets weird but it’s a fun time. the chemistry between char and ella is so zesty i can feel it through the screen, i swoon over both of them. tbh i probably wouldn’t like this movie so much if not for the fact that anne hathaway is truly talented and i spend most of my time watching it just looking at her. 

cinderella 3: a twist in time (2007) - i genuinely enjoyed and appreciated how the characters were written in this one. they all had clear motives and became much more dynamic through their lines and actions (drizella is arguably the most static character here but she still amuses me so it’s fine i guess). cinderella has more agency since the stakes are higher. prince charming actually has a gotdamn personality and has some of the funniest scenes and dialogue. good for him. i was kind of sad that anastasia’s story with the sweet baker boy was thanos snapped by the stepmother, but she and baker boy get a cute credits illustration together so it’s still canon! maybe i’m more biased on this one because i grew up rewatching it A Lot, but i definitely prefer it to the first and second movies.

cinderella (2000) - this one is kind of weird but i like it? the film has a really interesting vibe that i’m still trying to figure out how to describe even after seeing it like 5 times. wikipedia refers to the aesthetic style as “the glamour of the 1950s” which just might be as close as we can get. it follows the general guidelines of the cinderella plot, but the main differences were: zezolla (cinderella) was already helping with the chores before her father remarried, claudette (stepmother) was actively trying to murder zezolla’s father during their marriage, the stepsisters were much more violent and crass (they hunted zezolla’s beloved farm animals for sport and talked about getting “a man in [their] bed”), zezolla’s father was manipulated by everything claudette did and said and treated his own daughter poorly as a result, and prince valiant is honestly kind of a douchebag but seems willing to improve himself after meeting zezolla (basically his vibes are iffy but he’s willing to learn). this whole movie is pretty niche and i have yet to interact with someone who’s also seen it. and the only reason i’ve seen it so many times is because i just like listening to how the dialogue is delivered. (except for prince valiant’s random song at the ball, i kind of hated that and i skip through it every time lol).

a cinderella story (2004) - the classic hilary duff version. very cliche early 2000s high school romance, but it works for the cinderella narrative. not particularly diverse. a classic nonetheless. in my mind this is the pinnacle of the “modern cinderella movie” type. this is one of the most iconic movies for us zillennials and i’d like to think it’s known well enough for me to not go into a lot of detail about it. basically it was fresh and new for its time, had plenty of memorable scenes, and did i mention hilary duff? the film kind of plays into the “not like other girls” trope - as do a couple of the movies i listed above - but i’m just going to acknowledge that the early 2000s were Wack and simply move on. all in all, i like this movie for the nostalgia, iconic scenes, and hilary duff. also jennifer coolidge is pretty funny as the stepmother.

another cinderella story (2008) - again, an early 2000s classic, but this time with selena gomez. i liked the dancing in this one. i like selena’s quiet, somewhat timid characterization of her character, mary. and jane lynch in the stepmother role is perfection. she’s so fun to watch and is always hilarious. the story is nothing remarkable, but it’s okay and i liked it as a kid. after the hilary duff version, this one still managed to feel fresh because, though it was similar in its modern era approach, it focused more on the performing arts and dance. “cinderella” is an aspiring dancer, rather than the 2004 aspiring scholar. the “prince” is a famous popstar, not a football player. the stepmother is an outdated popstar desperate to stay Hip and Relevant with the kids, not a cranky botox lady. honestly i just love watching this one for the dancing, mary’s genuine and innocent love for the “prince”, and literally everything that comes out of jane lynch’s mouth. that woman is a dialogue gold mine.

a cinderella story: once upon a song (2011) - lucy hale is good. missi pyle is good. they play their roles and lines that they’re given fairly well. over all, it’s entertaining. lucy, of course, has them Pipes and i do like the songs in this movie. the only major downside for me was the “token best friend of color” trope. lucy’s best friend is an asian girl who’s good at sports and is there for one liners and support. the prince charming character’s best friend is a black guy who he only knew for probably a month at the most. he can beatbox, sing, and dj. basically he’s also just there as support. they really don’t do much for the plot but they’re there for diversity and whatnot. this movie is.. fine.

cinderella (1950) - the only reason this ranks so low for me is because i watched it a lot as a child when it was on vhs and it always felt like a fever dream to me. i was just really young and didn’t feel invested in any of the characters. it is a classic, though, and i would watch it again and be able to enjoy it.

cinderella 2: dreams come true (2002) - i liked cinderella’s and anastasia’s stories from this one. jaq’s was meh. it was fine.

dj cinderella or cinderella pop (2019) - netflix knows i like cinderella adaptations so, naturally, they shoved this into my recommended and, naturally, i watched it. twice. which is more than i can say for the following review... so this movie is brazillian and is pretty much the cut & mold of modern cinderella movies. but she wants to be a dj. she stars out living a perfect life as a wealthy girl with a loving family, but turns out her dad is cheating on her mom with his secretary. that’s when she “stops believing in love”. which is actually valid bc if i saw one of my parental figures cheating on the other, i honestly wouldn’t know what to believe in anymore. anyway, cíntia dorella (yes. that’s her full name.) and her mom move into her aunt’s place. a year or so passes. stepmother/secretary/cheating lady is throwing an extravagant birthday party for her daughters and hires freddy prince, a popular musician who cíntia doesn’t really like. meanwhile, cíntia gets a dj gig she’s excited for until she finds out she’s the opener for freddy prince at her stepsisters’ party. she ends up disguising herself as “dj cinderella” and freddy is super into her. it’s pretty generic from there but i was entertained enough to watch it twice. take from that what you will.

cinderella (2015) - ok so we been knew that d*sney’s live action remakes ain’t shit, and this one is no exception. d*sney within the last few years has been like 99% aesthetics and marketing. this movie was visually stunning, especially with the settings and costumes. those were the only 2 things i truly liked. everything else was forgettable. in its defense, i did read a post about the “have courage and be kind” message which is something wonderful to hold onto, especially for anyone in an abusive situation like ella. that’s valid and i respect that. i still lowkey hate this movie tho. i started getting a headache about 4 reviews ago, but remembering how much praise this movie got has reignited my fighting spirit. honestly if you like it, that’s good, you like what you like and that’s that. but this is my review and i hated how proper ella’s posture was (she’s been doing physical labor hunched on the floor for years now, how does she not slump around in exhaustion at the end of the day??), i hated how perfectly curated the whole thing was (again, that’s mostly because of d*sney and their aesthetics), and i hated how hollow everything felt. i can’t perfectly describe it, but i never felt emotionally invested in any of the characters. something about their performance was lacking and yet again i blame d*sney. i actually really like lily james, but something about the way she was directed left me devoid of emotional attachment to ella. i remember nothing about ella’s step family or the prince. that’s how much of an impact this adaptation had on me. also i just remembered the fairy godmother as i type this. i ADORE helena bonham carter, but this movie does a horrible disservice to her. if she liked working on this movie, then i’m happy for her, but even she wasn’t strong enough to sell this to me. i saw this movie in theaters and came out of it lamenting my waste of money that i could have spent on something i would have actually enjoyed. but the thing that enraged me the most, the thing i despised, i detested, the thing i seethed over and rant about to this day was the ONE (1) token black character. i don’t even know if he had a name but he was captain of the guard or some shit. if i remember correctly (but probably not tbh this movie was so forgettable), he was the one who heard ella singing and was the whole reason the prince was able to have her try on the glass slipper. this man, who had zero character development, zero relevance to the plot, an insignificant amount of screen time, is suddenly the reason the main character is able to finally connect with her love interest. um. What. i hate how the writers treated him and i will forever be filled with every last grain of salt over this. anyway he’s my favorite character and everyone else is just eh. to conclude this ungodly long review, i don’t like this movie. i tried to watch it again once but got so bored i quit 10 minutes in. do yourself a favor and watch cinderella (1997) instead. (the only reason this movie is ranked above the remaining 5 is the production quality. but i guess that’s unfair bc d*sney has the big bucks. and maybe i wouldn’t be so harsh if i weren’t sleep deprived and grumpy from a sugar-induced headache, but these feelings still come from my Chest so idk.)

a cinderella story: a christmas wish (2019) - i think we all secretly enjoy christmas-themed movies and this has got to be someone’s guilty pleasure. i was mildly entertained (but again with the cringey dialogue written by people clearly not in high school...) and i do like laura marano. but they autotuned her to hell and back - which i loathed - because the woman can actually sing and she has a lovely voice. she got to sing candidly one (1) time and i relished the experience. my ears thank her beautiful, un-autotuned voice. other than that it was.. fine. i didn’t hate it but i didn’t like it either. laura marano deserves better than this. (can’t say the same for the other actors tho because their roles were unmemorable.) also laura marano was super cute in her elf costume!

not cinderella’s type (2018) - i legit forgot about this one until after i compiled the entire list lol. i saw it on youtube and it was decent as far as i remember. it’s another modern day cinderella. i think the “prince” runs over “cinderella’s” cat or something?? i’m pretty sure it was her mom’s cat so now she has nothing left to remember her mom by. prince boy feels awful and tries to befriend her or do something to make it up to her, but she just doesn’t really like him. i think her aunt and uncle are emotionally abusive to her and prince boy does his best to be there for her without making things worse. if i remember correctly, i liked that aspect of the movie because it’s hard to be there for a victim of any kind of abuse if trying to help them could potentially hurt them more, especially minors still under the care of abusive guardians. anyway i think cinderella girl’s best friend is in love with her or something but she ends up not being into him and slowly gets together with prince boy. she eventually moves out of her guardians’ house and into the spare house at prince boy’s home (he’s rich or something). i need to rewatch this movie tbh i could be wrong about everything here lol.

rags (2012) - not amazing, definitely not memorable because i have nothing to say about its plot or writing, but it has keke palmer which is its one redeeming quality. also it’s the only one on this list where the male protagonist is the cinderella. so that’s solid i guess.

a cinderella story: if the shoe fits (2016) - this was a movie. it happened. i vaguely remember how ridiculous it was and sometimes i felt secondhand embarrassment. i don’t remember what about specifically, but i remember the emotion. sofia carson is a talented singer. i think she’s a decent actor but this script was Bad.

elle: a modern cinderella tale (2010) - i only watched this one because i was bored out of my damn mind and saw it on youtube. i felt bad for all the actors because this script was terrible. i don’t recommend this unless you’re about to sit down with your squad and make fun of it.

apparently descendants is on the “cinderella adaptations and references” list on imdb but i refuse to put it on my list because it’s not a cinderella-specific adaptation and i don’t like the descendants franchise. now, if we’re going to discuss a quality series about the children of fairytale characters, that would hands down be ever after high. but that’s a different topic for a different day.

thus concludes the ranking no one asked for but i felt compelled to make. thank you and goodnight

#summer.txt #cinderella #longpost #if anyone reads through this whole thing congrats! #i'll get u a gold star from the esteemed dollar store and bequeath it to you via uploaded photo #i didn't think i'd be typing for 4 hours straight but apparently i have a lot to say #i started falling apart at the end there lol #and around the middle bc i forgot to add cinderella 1 and 2 #god my head fucking hurts #i had a craving for sugar today but i went overboard and now i'm paying the price

[the-desolated-quill]

Into The Dalek - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Deep Breath couldn’t have been a more disappointing start if you tried. Into The Dalek on the other hand is pretty damn good for the most part. There are some problems, sure, but the quality is night and day compared to the previous episode. Maybe Phil Ford’s input had something to do with this improvement. I don’t know.

On the spaceship Aristotle (subtle), the Doctor discovers a Dalek that seems to have turned good. So he, Clara and some soldiers from the future get shrunk down and go for a little trek inside the Dalek to see what caused this. Now yes, this premise is similar to The Invisible Enemy just like the plot of Deep Breath was similar to The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, but unlike Deep Breath, Into The Daleks is actually entertaining and does just enough to make the premise its own. I mean come on. It’s the inside of a Dalek! How cool is that?! We finally get to see how it actually works, and there’s a lot of imaginative concepts here. I like the Dalek antibodies, the whole idea of a memory cortex that edits and suppresses memories to keep a Dalek ‘pure’ is intriguing, and we finally get an explanation for the sink plunger at last. So it’s used to absorb protein from victims? How positively revolting.

But let’s talk about the thing I love the most about Into The Dalek. The Doctor. Now we’ve gotten past all the post regeneration nonsense, we can finally see what kind of Doctor this one is going to be, and it’s very dark indeed. Warm and cuddly he most certainly ain’t. He’s very cold and methodical. The scene where he lets one of the soldiers die in order to use him to track the antibodies was a bit of a jaw dropper, but i liked it. It’s still very much in character and it’s a side of him we don’t often get to see in New Who. I’m also pleased to see that the humour has improved since Deep Breath. It’s no longer goofy whimsey. This Doctor’s humour is much more acerbic and dry, and he delivers a lot of darkly comedic lines.

Journey Blue: (referring to the protein vat) “Is Ross here?”

The Doctor: “Yeah. He’s the top layer if you want to say a few words.”

This kind of humour fits Peter Capaldi like a glove and he does a great job portraying that cold logic mixed with callousness. but what I especially love is how this episode explores this Doctor’s priorities. One of the many things that’s been bugging me about New Who, and about the Eleventh Doctor especially, is how the Doctor has been sliding closer and closer to being an all powerful saint who can do no wrong. Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s also not who the Doctor is at all. Sure the Doctor is a decent person who will always try to help those in need, but he’s not a god or a superhero. He’s just a guy. He can make mistakes, he’s capable of doing morally questionable things and sometimes he can let his own scientific curiosity and self interests get the better of him. Into The Dalek really seeks to highlight that. Throughout the episode, the Doctor is utterly convinced that there is no such thing as a good Dalek, and when he fixed the radiation leak, he knew full well there was a chance that the Dalek would revert back to its murderous self, but he did it anyway. The Doctor knew that fixing the radiation leak could make the Dalek evil again, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was being proven right. I love that because it adds a whole other layer to the character and makes him all the more interesting.

But as much as I enjoyed Twelve in this, there are some aspects of his character I don’t like. For example, the whole self doubt thing and his constant need to seek Clara’s approval. Considering he just retconned the whole Time War in order to save his own race and defended Trenzalore for centuries, I don’t see why the Doctor is furrowing his brow over whether he’s a good man or not. Especially when the answer is so painfully obviously yes. He may occasionally be selfish and self absorbed, and can sometimes make mistakes, but he always tries to do the right thing. And can I just take this opportunity to debunk the idea yet again of the Doctor being completely ineffectual without a companion. It seems as though the Doctor can’t do anything without needing Clara to hold his hand and guide him through everything, which just feels totally wrong.

But by far the thing I hate most about Twelve is his soldier prejudice. I’ve spoken at length in the past about how idiotic the whole pacifist thing is considering the Doctor has often resorted to using violence and guns in extreme circumstances during the classic series. Yes I suppose you could argue that Nine and Ten’s PTSD might have exacerbated the whole ‘no guns’ thing, but Twelve takes it to a whole new level. He hates soldiers to the point where he rejects Journey Blue’s request to travel with him at the end, but he doesn’t actually seem to have a good reason for his hatred. Journey doesn’t do anything wrong as far as I can see. He just hates soldiers because the script said so. You’d think, considering he recently met the War Doctor, that he would be slightly more sympathetic to soldiers, but nope. It just doesn’t make sense and the whole idea of all soldiers being bad is just too narrow minded.

It’s such a shame as well because I actually really liked Journey Blue. Zawe Ashton did a really good job in the role and I loved how she interacted with the Doctor. She clearly has a begrudging respect for him, but at the same time she’s not prepared to put up with any of his bullshit. I would much rather she was travelling with the Doctor than Clara because I feel Twelve really needs someone to pin him against a wall sometimes and challenge him. Clara seems to have more of a teacher/pupil role with him (with Clara playing the teacher role, which is wrong in and of itself), which just feels incredibly patronising. Journey’s relationship with the Doctor is more believable and thus more engaging in my opinion and I would kill to have her in the TARDIS with Peter Capaldi. I know some people didn’t like how aggressive and stroppy she was, but to be fair, she did just lose her brother. I think she’s got a right to be a little bit cranky. And the scenes with her uncle, played by Michael Smiley, do more than enough to humanise her in my eyes so she’s not just an angry, shouty woman. They have this really professional relationship, but you can detect a familial warmth underneath.

I really enjoyed Into The Dalek for the most part, but it’s when we get towards the end where the wheels start to wobble. The Doctor realising that all the Daleks could potentially be turned good isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. The problem is what this plotline focuses on. In the end, it’s the Doctor’s own hatred of the Daleks that turns Rusty into a Dalek killer rather than the reformed good guy the Doctor wanted, and we’re clearly supposed to be thinking about how much hate and prejudice the Doctor has towards the Daleks, but it doesn’t work. Not only have we basically explored this already in 2005′s Dalek (and done it better), I can’t help but feel Phil Ford and Steven Moffat have missed the point of their own story entirely. Honestly I think this tells us more about the Daleks than the Doctor. My main takeaway from this isn’t how hateful the Doctor is, but rather how utterly beyond help the Daleks are. Rusty was banging on about destroying the Daleks long before the Doctor mind melded with it. The way I see it, what turns Rusty isn’t the Doctor’s hatred, but rather its own desire for hatred. The Daleks don’t just want to hate. They need to hate. Whether it’s hating against humans, Time Lords or their own fellow Daleks, it seems that is a Dalek’s sole purpose of existence. Even in an attempt to expand its consciousness, Rusty ends up going for the one thing it recognises within the Doctor. Hatred. Why? Because that’s the only thing it knows how to do. It’s kind of tragic when you think about it and could have been used to great effect. This could have been an opportunity to shine a whole new light on the Daleks and present them in a way that’s never been done before, but instead Ford and Moffat sidestep what could have been a very interesting issue to explore in favour of retreading old ground. They’re focusing on entirely the wrong thing here, which is frustrating.

And then there’s the whole situation with Danny Pink. Samuel Anderson does the best he can with what he’s been given, but I’m not impressed with this character. Not only are we doing the whole cliched romcom shit again like we did in The Lodger, it’s also yet another stupid mystery for Moffat to drag out over the course of the series. What did Danny do while he was a soldier? And just to make sure all subtlety is thrown out of the window, we even get a prolonged shot of a single poetic tear trickling down Danny’s cheek. It’s really pathetic. Moffat is so bad at getting us to care about his characters that he has to resort to melodramatic bollocks like this to try and drag some kind of emotion out of us. Also, fuck you Clara. I don’t know what sort of emotional trauma Danny went through (and I don’t really care neither), but he’s clearly suffering from some form of PTSD, so to make dismissive jokes about it really is just beyond insulting. (And while I’m complaining about Clara, can we drop all the companion slapping Doctor jokes now please? Like I said in the past, it’s not cute and sexy. it’s assault and battery).

While there are a few flaws here and there, I still had a lot of fun watching this episode. I’d say this is definitely one of the better Dalek stories to come out of New Who.

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